One Woman
by AWiseNaptaker
Summary: Six months ago Delphine Cormier lost the love of her life, Danielle Fournier, to an unidentified disease. Lost and looking to start over, she moves to America and interns at DYAD medical, the forefront of the health industry, just in time for long time coma patient Cosima Niehaus to wake up... And finds that there's something familiar about the look in her eyes... (OC is Danielle)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:**

In full honesty, this idea popped into my head in the middle of writing my other fic and refused to let me continue to write that until I started to write this. I only have a vague idea of where this is going. If you all don't like it or I don't think it's worth continuing, then it most likely will be stopped. This fic is not my priority, despite how fantastic I think this idea is. I'm going to go at my own pace. So, if you like it, maybe let me know. Regardless, just let me know. Do you think it's worth continuing?

Without further adieu...

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><p><em><strong>Three Years Ago:<strong>_

It didn't happen the way Cosima thought it would. There wasn't a big parading band playing Chopin, marching down the street, alerting passerby as to the death of someone important. There wasn't an _Aha! _moment, where one second she was breathing and the next she realized she was dead. She didn't stop existing. Nobody cried. The world didn't stop turning.

In fact, it's sort of a surreal thought, Cosima simply opened her eyes and died.

Or, well, she should have. The doctor's at DYAD were barely able to resurrect her remains and stabilize her body. Cosima opened her eyes and took an artificial breath, and then she let go. She couldn't help herself. She'd been fighting for so long. Stage four uterine cancer. It was untreatable. When her doctor told her that she had barely months, Cosima laughed. And then she cried. She didn't have a chance.

The tumors had spread into her lungs, by that point. It had been getting difficult to breathe.

Before that, she had been aware of the tumors in her uterus. The doctor's had assured her, at the beginning, that they were non cancerous. They'd advised her to get them removed nonetheless. She didn't listen. Or, rather, she did. She had listened. She just couldn't afford the fee to get them surgically removed through all her student loans, and her insurance wouldn't cover it. Not to mention that the doctors had been avid about how the tumors wouldn't kill her, that they weren't dangerous in the sense that she could die. Only some discomfort, they'd said, occasionally pain during sex or in the pelvic area. So Cosima listened, and went without.

And then, rapidly, the tumors became cancerous. And, rapidly, they spread. And then, rapidly, she died. Or the equivalent of death in a sense, perhaps. Cosima didn't notice anything wrong until she laboured in her breaths, having thought the pain in her pelvic to be normal considering.

Needless to say she was wrong.

So very wrong.

She'd spent some time to herself after that thinking about life, setting her affairs in order, and living life the same way she had for the past twenty-nine years of her life. Cosima attended class every day. She visited her sisters regularly, kissing Alison on the cheek and hugging Helena hello. Decided not to tell either of them about the cancer for as long as she could. Every last moment she spent with them, she wanted to spend as their sister and not their dying sister. She even gave Sarah a call to say hello.

When she'd filled out her medical information ages ago, in the event of death she'd decided to donate her body to science.

Of course.

Still, and it was strange, one day she was there. And the next, she was still there. She just wasn't _there._ Cosima opened her eyes and realized that they weren't her eyes. They couldn't have been. She could see. Perfect twenty/twenty. So she took a look around, but found she couldn't move. She could only look. What she looked at was herself, but it couldn't have been herself. She was just laying there, with her eyes closed and unseeing. Not moving at all.

Sarah had been the one to find her.

That one struck with her, that Sarah found her first. She and Sarah had gotten along in the past. In fact, they'd gotten along very well until the argument. It was stupid, neither even remembers what it was about. Something about Beth. Something about Katja. The argument took a toll in each of them though, and it led to the downfall as sisters. After that, they couldn't stand to be around one another. They'd constantly argued. Sometimes fists were swung and hair was pulled and things got broken. They couldn't get along. They'd hated each other. Despite the numerous attempts by their other sisters, it was something that couldn't be reconciled. Their sibling relationship was strained. They tolerated one another for Kira's sake, who'd loved her Aunty Cosima.

When Cos had called them, a week before her inevitable demise, it was with a sort of bone-deep regret that she attempted to mollify the long standing situation with Sarah before reading to Kira over the phone. Sarah had been cordial. The conversation was tense. However, after years of not properly speaking to one another, it was better than nothing. Kira had seemed to think so too.

But that had been a week before. Cosima hadn't spoken to them since. She hadn't let anyone know of her stage four. Alison and Helena had no reason to be concerned.

When she died, it was Sarah who'd found her.

Cosima opened her eyes. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She was restricted to looking at herself laying prone on her bed and barely breathing. And then her breaths began to stall. And then they stopped. Nothing happened for hours. She just stood there, watching.

Suddenly her phone was ringing. And ringing. And ringing. She couldn't answer. Each time it went to voicemail, the caller hung up and tried again. And then there was pounding on her apartment door. Someone shouting. The doorknob being jimmied, until it suddenly burst open and a frantic Sarah, of all people, burst into the room. The person she hadn't spoken to in years without conflict.

And Sarah called for her. Sarah shook her. Sarah tried to slap her awake, and pinch her cheek, ignoring the stillness of her body. Ignoring the lack of her breath. She called for the police, who only confirmed what she'd tried to deny. It was too late.

Cosima couldn't move.

It was a sight to see.

She didn't think Sarah would break down over her, crying, clutching Cosima's body tightly to her. Holding the remains of her baby sister. Sarah kept calling out for her, screaming her name, begging her to wake up, pleading for her to come back, repeating that she couldn't lose Cosima too. The third sister to go. Eventually, Sarah had to let go and the body had to be removed.

Cosima wished she could've stayed, but she had no choice but to go and leave Sarah behind in her apartment, throwing and breaking things and trashing the place as she cried. Cosima didn't walk. She stood still, but her perspective stayed on her own body and she followed. She'd been zipped in a black bag. Placed in a van. In the smaller room, her perspective was closer. When she was unloaded, in all the space, her perspective had been farther. She hadn't been taken to a morgue, rather, she'd been taken to DYAD medical institute. They hooked her body into an I.V. A doctor came in, tall and severe.

It took five disgustingly grotesque hours, but then she breathed and the doctor grinned. Suddenly, she was no longer dead. Suddenly, she breathed. And continued breathing. The color returned to her cheeks. Her eyelids twitched. She was alive.

It was a medical miracle.

Sarah hadn't been around to witness it.

Cosima didn't wake up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes:**

It's still stuck in my head. Sorry people who are trying to stay updated on my other fic. Next chapter's halfway written. I really need to get the itch out of this one.:P

The story will start to kick off after Cosima wakes up. Until then, you'll have to handle with this.

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><p><em><strong>Today:<strong>_

Delphine stepped off the airplane, rolling her carry on behind her. She didn't stop to grab her luggage, as she had none. All of her belongings had been shipped ahead of time. The move was almost complete.

The airport in Minnesota was crowded. People were constantly rushing. Rushing to catch their flight. Rushing to get off the plane. To get some food. To get their luggage. To go, go, go. Of course, the rushing wasn't quite like the JFK terminal in New York. But still, they rushed. Delphine felt that airy, empty, breathless ache again in her chest when she thought of it. People, always in a rush to go. Never in a rush to stay. _Danielle..._

Delphine was a little bit of a hypocrite, ploughing through the masses like parting the Red Sea. No one stood in the way of the tall European. She was in a rush to go, too. Her internship started the day after tomorrow. She had little time to get situated in her new home before her new life began. _It already began, _she told herself. _Just look around you! _And she looked. Over in the corner, a middle-aged business man was discreetly attempting to pick his nose. Over by a fast-food restaurant, conveniently placed within the airport for hungry patrons, was a small family disgustingly inhaling burgers and fries down their throats. Ketchup was everywhere. Their cheeks were chubby and they licked their fingers. Beside her walked a travel worn woman with wrinkled clothing, dragging a series of heavy bags piled on top of one another behind her. Yes, surely, her new life had already begun. _Americans._

In no time, she'd made it out of the airport and picked up her rented car. The license plate had it listed from Utah. She crammed her carry-on in the space between the driver's seat and the backseat before hopping in, turning on the GPS, and going. She had time to get where she was going.

Just not all the time in the world.

Not anymore.

_Danielle..._

She saw her ghost everywhere she went. It was only in flashes. Once, after showering with the bathroom covered in steam, Delphine stood before her mirror brushing out her hair. She could've sworn, then, that she felt stead lips on her neck kissing their way up, and that in the mirror looking back at her were those brown eyes she missed so much. She closed her eyes for a moment to relish in it, but when she opened them the moment was gone. Once when she was sleeping, or trying to sleep in an empty bed full of nightmares, she felt arms wrap around her and hold her, comfort her. When she rolled over, there was no one there. The covers were smooth. Not a dent in the bed. Every corner she turned when she walked down the street in France, just out of sight of her eyes, Danielle was there. Delphine could feel her. Delphine could almost see her. A stray glance here and there, secret, phantom touches on her arm or lips or neck, a second look to make sure but whatever had been there would be gone. Delphine would be left with nothing.

Her thoughts brought her round and round, spinning, searching, longing. She knew Danielle was there, with her, the way they say that angels are. Watching over her.

That's why she had to get away.

She pulled the car up, into the apartment complex where she would be sharing a building with someone else who worked at DYAD medical. The moving truck was out front with men grabbing boxes out from it and bringing them inside. Delphine had her work cut out for her. There was a lot of work to do. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Danielle again. And when she looked, as normal, there was nothing there.

Someone tapped on her shoulder. Delphine turned around, half expecting to see the woman that haunted her thoughts. Instead she found a gangly looking young man, awkwardly standing before her with his hand held out in greeting. Delphine took it, and they shook, as he introduced himself.

"I'm Scott," he said, timidly taking back his hand. "I'm, uh, I'm your neighbor. We're going to be working together at DYAD, so I thought I'd introduce myself."

"Bonjour," she nodded politely. "Je suis Delphine."

He perked up a little, perhaps in curiosity, at her accent. Scott practically blurted out the question, "Why did you come all the way here to intern for DYAD?" Delphine gave him a sharp look, and he immediately attempting to backpedal. "That's- that's not to say that it's any of my business! But, I mean, surely there were better opportunities in France? Or somewhere closer to home?"

Watching Scott carefully, Delphine nodded again, solemnly. "There were, oui. Mais, it really is not your business," she said, hard. Scott immediately looked like someone kicked him, until Delphine continued. "But, I digress. France is not really my home right now. In fact, I doubt it ever will be again."

"So you are making your home in the US?" he asked again, cautiously.

Delphine gazed out at the movers and the moving van, attempting to ignore the fact that she could see Danielle breathing over Scott's shoulder. She had been trying to escape her ghosts, but they seemed to follow her- ever here- so she sighed, doubting that she'd ever truly escape them. Her heart wrenched in her chest. "Perhaps. We will see."

And that was that. Delphine waved Scott off and climbed inside her new home, through the door, up the stairs and to the right to begin unpacking her new office. The internship at DYAD starts the day after tomorrow. The office would need to be clear.

Danielle watched her, silently, standing unnoticed in the corner of the room. Nearly transparent but with the blue look of death the bodies take post-mortem. A frozen breeze gusted through her, airily, making her feel almost for a second as if she could breathe. She didn't move from her post in the corner, watching Delphine. Danielle would be with her love until she died.

And even then, they would be together.

Together forever.


End file.
